Your collection is in customs

The three days nobody schedules

Look at almost any first Milan production plan written by a brand team and you will find the same gap: the collection ships on one date and appears at the venue on another, with nothing between the two.

Between the two is customs, and customs has a duration. Sometimes it is a day. Sometimes it is a week, and the week lands on the week of your show.

This note is about that gap. It is orientation, not advice — every shipment is specific, and a licensed customs broker should confirm your case before anything is packed.

Temporary or permanent — decide before you pack

The first question is what happens to the goods after the show.

They go home. This is a temporary import. The goods enter the EU without duty and VAT being paid outright, on the condition that they leave again within a set period, unchanged.

They stay — sold, gifted, kept in a showroom, given to press. This is a permanent import. Duty and import VAT are due, and you need an EU-established importer of record to handle it.

Brands routinely say the first and then do the second: a piece is gifted to a stylist, three pieces stay in a Milan showroom for the buying season, a sample is sold to an editor. Each of those quietly converts part of a temporary import into something that has to be regularised. It is not a disaster if you plan for it. It is expensive if you discover it at the end.

ATA Carnet — and what it does not cover

An ATA carnet is an international customs document that lets goods travel temporarily across borders without duty deposits at each one. Both China and Italy participate in the system, and for a collection travelling to a show and returning home it is often the cleanest instrument.

What it does not cover is where problems start. A carnet is for goods that come back. It is not intended for anything that will be sold, consumed, given away or permanently left behind. Consumables, giveaway items, printed material distributed at the event, catering, and anything intended for sale generally sit outside it.

So a shipment containing eighteen runway looks (returning) plus two hundred gift boxes (not returning) is two different customs problems in one crate. Pack and document them separately.

How you describe a sample matters

Two lines on the packing list cause more delay than anything else.

Description. "Clothing" is not a description. Customs classification drives everything downstream, and vague descriptions get shipments held for inspection. Describe the item, the material composition and the intended use, consistently across every document.

Value. Every item needs a declared value even when nothing is being sold. Declaring a nominal value to keep it simple is a false economy — the value has to be defensible, and an inconsistency between the invoice, the packing list and the carnet is exactly what triggers a physical inspection.

The rule that saves the most time: the paperwork must agree with itself. Invoice, packing list, carnet and transport documents, identical, item by item.

The obligation everyone forgets

Temporary import creates an obligation to take the goods out again, within the permitted period, and to have that exit properly recorded.

This is where the real penalties live, and they arrive late — months after the show, long after the team has moved on, when nobody remembers who was responsible for stamping what. The show was a success. The file was never closed.

Assign that closure to a named person before the goods ship, and keep the discharged documents.

Six weeks before

• Decide, item by item, what returns and what stays

• Appoint a customs broker in Italy and confirm the instrument — carnet or standard temporary admission

• Confirm who the importer of record is for anything staying

• Build the documents so they match: description, composition, quantity, value

• Split returning and non-returning goods into separate consignments

• Put three working days of buffer between planned clearance and the day you need the collection at the venue

• Name the person responsible for closing the file after the show

The reason we wrote this

Because the phone call we get most often in September is not about creative. It is a brand director in Shanghai saying the collection has been in Malpensa for two days and the show is on Thursday.

At that point the options are expensive and few. Six weeks earlier they were free.

— Jonah Liu, N.7 Studio

General orientation only, current as of September 2026. Customs treatment depends on the specific goods, their origin and their intended use. Confirm your case with a licensed customs broker before shipping.